The present invention relates a camera provided with a lens barrel protruding from a camera main body.
In recent years, lens barrels are becoming larger, along with the development of the performance of lenses. Consequently, where a camera has a lens barrel protruding from a camera main body, the center of gravity of the camera shifts toward the lens barrel, thereby sometimes making the camera unstable when it is placed on a table.
Further, where the camera main body is provided with a light-emitting element for an auto-focus assist light and a light-receiving element for a remote control, the light is partly blocked by the protruding lens barrel. As a result, problems arise in that the effective scope of the auto-focus mechanism is narrowed, and the light receiving scope for the remote control is also narrowed.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 11-17987 discloses a camera having a lens barrel protruding from a camera main body. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/050,339 filed on Mar. 30, 1998 discloses a camera having a lens barrel protruding from a camera main body and supported by a mount frame. The structure shown in patent application Ser. No. 09/050,339 can solve an unstable state of a placed camera, which may be caused in the structure shown in KOKAI Publication No. 11-17987, nevertheless it still entails problems about the operability of the camera, and the effective scopes of light-emitting and light-receiving elements.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a camera in which the effective scopes of light-emitting and light-receiving elements are not limited, so that associated mechanisms can normally operate even if the camera has a large lens barrel.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a camera which is stably held and/or easily handled while it is placed or used for picture taking, even if the camera has a large and heavy lens barrel.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a camera comprising:
a camera main body;
a lens barrel arranged on a front face of the camera main body to extend forward therefrom, and to hold an image-pickup lens therein;
a protruding section arranged on the lens barrel to extend downward therefrom, and to have a bottom at a level substantially not beyond a bottom of the camera main body; and
a light-emitting portion or a light-receiving portion arranged on a front face of the protruding section.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a camera comprising:
a camera main body;
a lens barrel arranged on a front face of the camera main body to extend forward therefrom, and to hold an image-pickup lens therein; and
a protruding section arranged on the lens barrel to extend downward therefrom,
wherein the camera main body and the protruding section have bottoms substantially level with each other, wherein the protruding section has a width defined by first and second side surfaces which extend along an optical axis of the image-pickup lens and face each other, and the width gradually decreases from the lens barrel to the bottom of the protruding section, and wherein the first side surface has a steeper angle from the lens barrel to the bottom of the protruding section than that of the second side surface.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a camera comprising:
a camera main body having a bottom for mounting the camera on a support body;
a lens barrel arranged on a front face of the camera main body to extend forward therefrom, and to hold an image-pickup lens therein, the lens barrel having a bottom at a level higher than the bottom of the camera main body;
a protruding cover attached to the lens barrel to extend downward therefrom, and to have a bottom at a level substantially not beyond the bottom of the camera main body;
a first window arranged on a front face of the protruding cover; and
a light-emitting element arranged in the protruding cover to face the first window, for emitting light to be radiated through the first window to a position outside the protruding cover.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.